Resilience Against Traumatic Stress: Current Developments and Future Directions

Given the high prevalence of stress-related mental disorders, their impact on person, family, and society and the paucity of treatment options for most of these disorders, there is currently a pressing need for innovative approaches to deal with these issues and enhance well-being. One approach which has received increasing attention over the last decade is to shift our scientific and clinical focus from risk factors for psychopathology to factors promoting resilience and mental well-being. In order to summarize and evaluate the current state of scientific affairs on the biological basis of resilience, we provide an overview of the literature on animal and human studies of resilience. Because resilience can only truly be operationalized through longitudinal data collection and analyses, we focus primarily on longitudinal studies. This review shows that the concept of resilience is currently being operationalized, measured and even defined in widely variable manners, both within animal and human studies. We further provide an overview of existing and new strategies that could help promote resilience and which are proposed to be implemented more often in clinical situations. Finally, we summarize the challenges the field is facing and provide recommendations for future research

The Molecular Biology of Susceptibility to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Highlights of Epigenetics and Epigenomics

Exposure to trauma is one of the most important and prevalent risk factors for mental and physical ill-health. Excessive or prolonged stress exposure increases the risk of a wide variety of mental and physical symptoms. However, people differ strikingly in their susceptibility to develop signs and symptoms of mental illness after traumatic stress. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating disorder affecting approximately 8% of the world’s population during their lifetime, and typically develops after exposure to a traumatic event. Despite that exposure to potentially traumatizing events occurs in a large proportion of the general population, about 80–90% of trauma-exposed individuals do not develop PTSD, suggesting an inter-individual difference in vulnerability to PTSD. While the biological mechanisms underlying this differential susceptibility are unknown, epigenetic changes have been proposed to underlie the relationship between exposure to traumatic stress and the susceptibility to develop PTSD. Epigenetic mechanisms refer to environmentally sensitive modifications to DNA and RNA molecules that regulate gene transcription without altering the genetic sequence itself. In this review, we provide an overview of various molecular biological, biochemical and physiological alterations in PTSD, focusing on changes at the genomic and epigenomic level. Finally, we will discuss how current knowledge may aid us in early detection and improved management of PTSD patients

Resilience Against Traumatic Stress: Current Developments and Future Directions

Given the high prevalence of stress-related mental disorders, their impact on person, family, and society and the paucity of treatment options for most of these disorders, there is currently a pressing need for innovative approaches to deal with these issues and enhance well-being. One approach which has received increasing attention over the last decade is to shift our scientific and clinical focus from risk factors for psychopathology to factors promoting resilience and mental well-being. In order to summarize and evaluate the current state of scientific affairs on the biological basis of resilience, we provide an overview of the literature on animal and human studies of resilience. Because resilience can only truly be operationalized through longitudinal data collection and analyses, we focus primarily on longitudinal studies. This review shows that the concept of resilience is currently being operationalized, measured and even defined in widely variable manners, both within animal and human studies. We further provide an overview of existing and new strategies that could help promote resilience and which are proposed to be implemented more often in clinical situations. Finally, we summarize the challenges the field is facing and provide recommendations for future research

Resilience Against Traumatic Stress: Current Developments and Future Directions

Given the high prevalence of stress-related mental disorders, their impact on person, family, and society and the paucity of treatment options for most of these disorders, there is currently a pressing need for innovative approaches to deal with these issues and enhance well-being. One approach which has received increasing attention over the last decade is to shift our scientific and clinical focus from risk factors for psychopathology to factors promoting resilience and mental well-being. In order to summarize and evaluate the current state of scientific affairs on the biological basis of resilience, we provide an overview of the literature on animal and human studies of resilience. Because resilience can only truly be operationalized through longitudinal data collection and analyses, we focus primarily on longitudinal studies. This review shows that the concept of resilience is currently being operationalized, measured and even defined in widely variable manners, both within animal and human studies. We further provide an overview of existing and new strategies that could help promote resilience and which are proposed to be implemented more often in clinical situations. Finally, we summarize the challenges the field is facing and provide recommendations for future research

Circulating microRNAs as Potential Biomarkers of Differential Susceptibility to Traumatic Stress

Stress-related psychiatric disorders across the life spa

Relations of combat stress and posttraumatic stress disorder to 24-h plasma and cerebrospinal fluid interleukin-6 levels and circadian rhythmicity

Background: Acute and chronic stress can lead to a dysregulation of the immune response. Growing evidence suggests peripheral immune dysregulation and low-grade systemic inflammation in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with numerous reports of elevated plasma interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels. However, only a few studies have assessed IL-6 levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Most of those have used single time-point measurements, and thus cannot take circadian level variability and CSF-plasma IL-6 correlations into account.Methods: This study used time-matched, sequential 24-h plasma and CSF measurements to investigate the effects of combat stress and PTSD on physiologic levels and biorhythmicity of IL-6 in 35 male study volunteers, divided in 3 groups: (PTSD = 12, combat controls, CC = 12, and non-deployed healthy controls, HC = 11).Results: Our findings show no differences in diurnal mean concentrations of plasma and CSF IL-6 across the three comparison groups. However, a significantly blunted circadian rhythm of plasma IL-6 across 24 h was observed in all combat-zone deployed participants, with or without PTSD, in comparison to HC. CSF IL-6 rhythmicity was unaffected by combat deployment or PTSD.Conclusions: Although no significant group differences in mean IL-6 concentration in either CSF or plasma over a 24-h timeframe was observed, we provide first evidence for a disrupted peripheral IL-6 circadian rhythm as a sequel of combat deployment, with this disruption occurring in both PTSD and CC groups. The plasma IL-6 circadian blunting remains to be replicated and its cause elucidated in future research.</p